In 1963, the Daily News in Springfield, Massachusetts covered the local Little League campaign as if it were the Majors. Complete standings were listed each week, and summaries of every game were crafted by sportswriters who weren’t afraid to show off their flair for language. Even in a two-inch blurb, a fine pitching performance might be described as a “twirling gem” and a struggling hurler might be likened to someone “throwing watermelons” to eager batters.
We lived to see our names in print and dreamed we might someday be like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris or Carl "Yaz" Yastremski. We knew no one could ever touch the recently retired Ted Williams.
My neighborhood was filled with large families, so there was no shortage of children to fill out the teams. Naturally enough, the Catholic kids played for the Holy Cross squad. Surprisingly, I played on the Wachogue Church team along with all the other Jewish kids. Our coach, Harry Stuckenbruck, was a lay minister who earned his living working for a big insurance company by day. Although the church was more of a neighborhood recreation center than a depository of religious dogma, the irony of playing for a church team, being coached by a protestant minister, and having the majority of the team be Jewish was not lost on us kids. When the Catholic boys started tracing a cross into the dirt with their bats before each turn at the plate, we followed suit with a Star of David. All the religious artwork probably lengthened the games by a good ten minutes.
We must have been doing something right, though, because we made a great run through the city tournament in ‘63. I remember that year like it was yesterday. I still have the old clips, glossy team photo, and stylish trophy awarded for our performance. I was hitting like a demon and connected for a grand slam in a 20-1 pounding of the Forest Park Jets. My best friend, Eric Stahl, drove me home for the winning run against McKnight AA. Those were exciting moments a young boy never forgets. After playing together for six years, we were one win away from the championship game.
The matchup against Grenier’s of Holyoke was neck and neck through the early frames. Zwirko, the big slugger we feared most, hit a towering fly over my head in the outfield. I was the tallest player on the team—even edging out Coach Stuckenbruck—but no one was going to catch this ball. They measured it at 325 feet. Despite the homer, we still held an unexpected 5-4 advantage going into the final inning. Then a pair of infield errors seemed to knock the remaining wind out of our already tired pitcher. Several hits later, we were 10-5 losers and out of the tournament.
But we almost beat the best team in the league. Come to think of it, we almost were the best team in the league.
Originally published 1994
Volume 1/Number 3
Vince Coleman wasn’t the first aspiring demolition expert to throw a firecracker into a crowd of people outside a ballpark. Near as I can tell, that honor belongs to me.
I was outside the ballpark, but my targets were in the visitor’s dugout. They were Little Leaguers. Me, I never played.
Coleman, you recall, hurled an M-80 out the window of a car driven by Eric Davis. Three were hurt, one of them a two-year-old girl. Coleman was a New York Met and Davis an L.A. Dodger. Hell, they should have thrown ’em both in jail for that alone.
Me, I was running with the wrong crowd too. It was 1969 and my family had just moved to Tampa from Chicago. Tampa didn’t even have a baseball team, serving only as the spring-training home of the Cincinnati Reds. But it did have its share of juvenile delinquents,
On the day in question, Mitchell, Jeff and I were riding our Stingrays and chuckin’ Black Cat firecrackers at stuff. I was doing most of the chuckin’, actually, because I was the guy trying to prove he was cool. We rode past a Little League game and one of the players riding the pine for the home team dared me start shelling the opposition. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I lit a Black Cat and fired it at a small window in the visitor’s dugout.
I guess you’d have to call my throw a “wild pitch.” It was the kind of toss that makes batters charge the pitcher with their bat in hand. I missed my target by a mile. The sizzling firecracker hit the cinder block dugout wall and came flying toward me like a liner back to the mound. I tried to slap it away just as it detonated. After my hand exploded—and after I stopped crying—I remember making up some story about how two or three “big guys in a car” threw the firecracker at me and then drove away. (“Honest, coach, it was the big guys.”)
Didn’t Vince Coleman finally say he’d learned a lot from his mistake? I learned a lot, too.
Little League is where you acquire ball control. And stay out of baseball if you have a short fuse.
— Stephen Buel
Originally published 1994
Vol. 1/Number 2
My relationship with my mother was never the same after Little League. Well, it was never that great to begin with, but after the Orioles kicked me off their team, I forever viewed her through cynical eyes.
The trouble started one warm spring afternoon in 1964. I was 10-years old and playing right field for the Orioles at Encino Park down in the San Fernando Valley.
It was a slow game without much action—especially in right field—which was just how my coach liked it after seeing me in action at practice.
As I stood their and cursed myself for not wearing my athletic supporter, I heard the screech of my mother’s voice, a sound not unlike two submarines bumping together. “Bob-arrrhhhh,” she spat out, coughing half way through Bobby.
I turned and looked at her. Actually, I gaped at her.
She was holding a hotdog.
“Here,” she said, motioning with the weenie. “I brought you something to eat.”
I recoiled in horror. “Mom!” I pleaded. “I can’t eat that out here.”
But she persisted. Eventually, I figured what the hell, strolled over to the fence, and went to work on the dog.
That’s when it happened.
All day, and not one single ball was hit my way. But no sooner had I taken a bite of ballpark frank than some punk kid connected at the plate, sending a slicing rocket to rightfield .
The ball landed with a dull thud and skipped toward the back fence. I didn’t have a clue to what was going on because I was talking to my mom, who wondered aloud seconds later whether I should do something about that pesky ball that had come to rest on the warning track.
By that time it was too late. The kid had already rounded the bases with and inside-the-park homer.
I was kicked off the team later that week.
I love you, mom, but I’ll never forgive you.
— Bob Hansen
Originally published April 1994
Vol. 1/Number 1
